The triumph of the West

Oh how I wish I had the presence of mind to have taken a picture of her to illustrate the point of this post, not that I ever need much excuse to publish a picture of an attractive young woman… my camera was on my belt as usual but alas my brain was not in gear and moments later she was lost in the swirling post-Christmas sales crowds.

She was in her late teens or maybe early twenties, obviously from a fairly well off family, very stylish in a ‘Mayfair London’ manner (though I saw her in Kensington), beautiful in a ‘could be a model’ sort of way, dusky complexion, long legs made to look even longer by expensive looking high heeled shoes and a very short form fitting ‘little black dress’… and wearing an Iranian style hijab.

Although I can only speculate as I do not know the young woman who caught my eye, it is not hard to see the ‘domestic compromise’ at work here… her family insisting she wear the hijab whilst she insisted on dressing to kill in the manner of her adopted western culture and friends.

This little drama must get played out a million times a year across Europe and North America amongst the Muslim diaspora and in the long run, it is not hard to see which cultural force is going to win. I suspect that one of the reasons that small pockets of western Muslims have become radicalized is that it is they who are most starkly confronted with what happens in the majority of cases when the old ways are confronted by western secular individualism. No civilization based on submission to arbitrary edicts from the Dark Ages can survive contact with a civilization that essentially encourages you to find your own way and do what you will.

I suspect within one hundred years, maybe less, Islam will have about as much relevance to the life of most ‘Muslims’ as the Anglican Church does to most British ‘Christians’… something you might or might not encounter when getting married or buried and not much else.

December 31st, 2003 |

84 comments to The triumph of the West

It is true that they are out-reproducing us at the moment. Happily, the juggernaut that is the modern world will make it impossible for them to reproduce their culture. They WILL be dragged into the 21st century, albeit kicking and screaming. The women WILL discover literacy, contraception, and property ownership. Then you’ll see their birth rates drop, and we all can move on to whatever horrific clash comes next.

Perry de H. might be correct in his admitted speculation when he writes “Although I can only speculate as I do not know the young woman who caught my eye, it is not hard to see the ‘domestic compromise’ at work here… her family insisting she wear the hijab whilst she insisted on dressing to kill in the manner of her adopted western culture and friends.” But he might be way off.

One must not overlook the possibility that the young lady, while sporting fashionable accessories in keeping with her (presumed) class in British society, is among the many young idiotarians who are against the policies of the US & UK in the Middle East, and might be wearing the hijab to display her sympathy for the “other side.”

We must remember to avoid prejudicial presumptions which would seem to support predictions such as “Triumph of the West” (as likely as it seems).

Hmm… I think you need to brush up on demography. Broadly speaking, Muslims belong to the homo progenitivus species; we belong to the homo contracipiens branch. Here’s what Darwin’s illustrious grandson wrote on the topic:

You miss the point. It is not a contest of numbers, but rather one of ideas.

And their families will even have “honor killings” if they think their daughters are too westernised. I read not long ago about a Kurdish teen girl killed by her father for having a western boyfriend.
Their culture is disgusting when twisted in an anti-western way. People can be Muslim without out reproducing us and being unradical, but until fanaticism is controlled, a girl wearing a hijab is common in Europe, especially London and Paris.
I never saw so many Muslims wearing the headress before I came there.

None writes:
“is true that [the Muslims] are out-reproducing us at the moment. Happily, the juggernaut that is the modern world will make it impossible for them to reproduce their culture. They WILL be dragged into the 21st century, albeit kicking and screaming. The women WILL discover literacy, contraception, and property ownership. Then you’ll see their birth rates drop, and we all can move on to whatever horrific clash comes next.”

That’s wishful thinking without a shred of evidence.

Jonathan Wilde writes:

“You miss the point. It is not a contest of numbers, but rather one of ideas.”

It is Jonathan who misses the point, not me. It is PRECISELY a contest of numbers. WE may have all the best songs, but THEY have the best breeding populations. Allow me to cite at length from Spengler’s “Decline of the West” (it’s one of the few non-turgid passages in his magnum opus):

“The abundant proliferation of primitive peoples is a natural phenomenon, which is not even thought about, still less judged as to its utility or the reverse. When reasons have to be put forward at all in a question of life, life itself has become questionable. At that point begins the prudent limitation of the number of births. The primary woman, the peasant woman, is mother. The whole vocation towards which she has yearned from childhood is included in that one word. But now emerges the Ibsen woman, the comrade, the heroine of a whole megalopolitan literature from Northern drama to Parisian novel. Instead of children, she has soul-conflicts; marriage is a craft-art for the achievement of “mutual understanding”. It is all the same whether the case against children is the American lady’s who would not miss a season for anything, or the Parisienne’s who fears that her lover would leave her, or an Ibsen heroine’s who “belongs to herself” – they all belong to themselves and they are all unfruitful. […]
… there is an ethic for childless intelligences, and a literature about the inner conflicts of Nora and Nana.

At this level all civilisations enter upon a stage, which lasts for centuries, of appalling depopulation. The whole pyramid of cultural man vanishes. It crumbles from the summit, first the world-cities, then the provincial forms and finally the land itself, whose best blood has been incontinently poured into the towns, merely to bolster them up awhile. At the last, only the primitive blood remains, alive, but robbed of its strongest and most promising elements. This residue is the Fellah type.”

This is where the traditionalist in me is still in conflict with the libertarian. Ideas do not grow in a vacuum. Western culture and its political ideas cannot be easily divorced from Western people, and Western people are dying out. At some time in the future it may be that Western ideals, or perhaps more likely, Asian, African and Islamic versions of those ideas will be in the ascendency. But they are not now. And Islamic radicalism is growing. We are not just talking about fundamentalist terrorists here, but those who see a gulf between between Western ideas and Islam which, cosmetic issues like dress aside, cannot be bridged. And there is no evidence that future generations of Muslims will simply transform into good Westerners. On the contrary, as Muslims begin to dominate countries like Britain and France, which will be the case in about fifty years. Unless our population grows, or serious immigration reform is undertaken (both would be ideal) then Muslims will begin to undermine our cultural and poltical values. To this scenario must be added the fact that in many respects Western values are already under serious attack, from the left and in particular from tranzi’s and multiculturalists. With a significant proportion of our own people essentially in an alliance with Islam, wittingly or not, and with our population declining rapidly, I fear for the future.

There is much about Patrick Buchanan I do not like, and much of what he says that I disagree with, especially on economics, but his book ‘Death of the West’ has some important and valid points, and I would recommend it to any concerned with the future of of culture.

The problem with traditionalists and paleoconservatives is their unwillingness to understand that Western classical liberal values are universal human values, and that other cultures can learn them and adopt them. The problem with libertarians is their unwillingness to understand that culture and poltical ideas grow within actual ethnic peoples, and the death of those peoples can mean the death of those ideas.

I think one of the West biggest problems is the arrogance of ideas. We think our ideas are so superior that they will naturally civilise and secularise other cultures before they over-run us. This is probably exactly what they thought until the Muslims were at the door of Vienna all those years ago. It is a battle of ideas and blood will be shed. It is a shame but it is the case.

What some must realise is that cowardice and surrender is not respected by the Islamokazis. The sooner we learn that the better. Do we honestly think that Libya would have become so cooperative if it had not been for a few bunker busters in Afganisatan and Iraq?

“none writes:
‘ … The women WILL discover literacy, contraception, and property ownership. Then you’ll see their birth rates drop, and we all can move on to whatever horrific clash comes next.’

“That’s wishful thinking without a shred of evidence.”

To the contrary, there is a good deal of evidence that people limit their numbers when given the motivation and means to do so. You may be up to debating its importance, accuracy, relevance, etc. But it does exist, and in no small quantity.

If you want to frame the question in terms of population dynamics, think “carrying capacity.”

J. Wilde wrote: You miss the point. It is not a contest of numbers, but rather one of ideas.

Exactly. That is why they are moving to live in the west in large numbers and not the other way around. It does not matter how many babies they have once they get here because we will make them ours in the end. The Englishman of 100 years from now may be darker skinned but he will still be an Englishman and not a Muslim culturally regardless of his genetics.

Great migrations of peoples, which in the end displaced older cultures, have happened before, and they will happen again. The West enjoys no exemption from historical forces.

We in the West, at some point, might have to confront dearly held notions, like the intrinsic worth of allowing immigration to a country, because of some definition of the common good which is realized thereby. We might have to decide whether such tenets are actually detrimental to the common good.

Several European nations look to be a case in point–many seem to be standing by and observing themselves disappear. Are any worth keeping around, as we have become accustomed to them? How is it possible to keep the nations we know, without ending Muslim or other immigration, and removing non-native populations which tend to reproduce at a higher than replacement level?

Are Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Barcelona, or thousands of other places fine the way they are, or would we prefer they exist under Shari’a law? Like it or not, it looks as if we are going to find out, sooner than we think.

Not all Western nations are shrinking. The USA is growing, and not from immigration alone. Native born Americans are having more children than the natives of any other industrialized nation.

I think it’s a vote of confidence in the future. Americans are confident they can provide for more children that their peers in Europe & Japan. I feel the same. Here, the future is bright, and anything is possible.

Getting back to the original post, I agree. Religions & philosophy are like any other cultural phase, and the people of the Southern lands, and the Near and Far East as just as capable of progress as the West. I blogged about this earlier.Permalink.

I feel a lot more sympathy with the posts made above by Charles Copeland, Cecile, Andrew Dodge and Shawn than the rather heroic optimism of some other posters. I see no reason at all to think that ideas naturally triumph if they are objectively better than the alternative. In the Darwinian sense in which Charles Copeland rightly judges this matter, what determines survival is not the actual merits of the idea, but its ability to get itself replicated. When birthrates diverge so massively between Western civilisation and other parts of the world with a very different conception of the rights of man, this issue simply cannot be ignored nor shrugged off.

Some demographers are predicting that the (very-)long-term consequence of plummeting Western birthrates could be the secular West ultimately overcome and dominated by the authoritarian rule of whichever fundamentalist, theocratic religious group can motivate its supporters to outbreed the others, be it Wahhabi Muslims, Orthodox Jews, Protestant fundamentalists, Mormons etc. That is one possible reality people who are happy to ignore issues like birthrates and demographics ought to consider. While we can imagine a thousand less extreme scenarios, most of them involving what Mark Steyn describes as Western nations reaching a consensual and liberty-diminishing “accommodation” with unreconstructed Islam, the point cannot be missed that such issues as birthrates, death rates, migration levels and the like should really matter to any far-sighted political thinker. The idea that these issues are irrelevant to libertarianism, the war on terror, capitalism and the most basic civil rights can only be sustained by the most ostrich-like wishful thinking.

Heroic optimism–I like that! However, my own comments are based on simple economics: As the economic value of female labor rises–this is what has happened in the developed countries, and what will happen in the developing countries–as the economic value of female labor rises, so will the cost of bearing children. Guess what happens then?

“Christopher says, ‘I don’t regard Islam as the enemy, I regard religion as the enemy’ – but Peter reckons a big problem with the West’s war on terrorism is precisely its lack of a strong religious-based ideology capable of challenging the beliefs of the Taliban: ‘Despite being a civilisation based upon Christian principles and living in the afterglow of the Christian civilisation, we’re not particularly Christian anymore. We’re not even pagans – we’re just consumerists. I really don’t think we have much of an ideology with which to combat the immensely powerful and, in some ways, rather impressive faith of the Islamic world.”

The view of Copeland et al – stated simplistically as: the coming wave of Islamic migration and population is going to destroy the West – is Malthusian. It has the same weakness as most other Malthusian arguments – it is essentially a straight line extrapolation. It says that what is happening now will continue to happen and -taken to an extreme- will result in disaster.

But changes are very very likely. In fact, the probability of current social, economic and demographic trends remaining unchanged over -say the next 50 years – must be close to nil.

Pestilence, war and famine are old influences that are still with us. They are much more threatening to the Islamic world than to us. There are new threats too. The Unabomber, misguided and warped as his thinking was, did have a point: As technology grows and becomes more powerful and more complex, the mass of people are going to be left behind. As the productivity of the advanced few increases exponentially, it will be harder and harder for those left behind to catch up. That technology can and probably will be military as well as civil. (Advancing technology is one trend that can be extrapolated linearly, perhaps for the next century or so.) The way to ride this wave is not to breed large numbers of primitives but to encourage -very strongly encourage- individual initiative and creativity. That isn’t going to happen under Sharia law.

When I read things like this, I just cant stop laughing. I mean, it just shows how paranoid some people are and just so overly analytical and hysterical. That girl was wearing a Hijab, so BIG FREAKIN DEAL!!!!!? I mean, it’s like in Afghanistan you have freaks forcing burqas on women and the whole world condemns it…and rightfully so. Now ironically in France, you have people “preventing” people from wearing a Hijab in school… in the name of “secularism.” Just shows what kind of society France is, and the White House was correct to point earlier this week how much more tolerant the US is in regards to religion. The fact is that wearing a piece of cloth isn’t “imposing” anything on another person no more than a person wearing a mini-skirt. What happened to liberty? Many of my friends wear the Hijab, and I never felt any peer pressure that I had to do it too. I have a lot of respect for them, they are practicing their religion…it should be respected. It seems that its “ok” for an old hunched over Orthodox Jewish woman to cover her hair…but for a young muslim woman to do it…it suddenly becomes a threat and alarm bells sound. My father is Pakistani, and I had a muslim upbringing. Even though I don’t wear the Hijab, I still have the utmost respect for those muslim women who choose to wear it for their religious convictions. Religious coercion is as bad as forcing people not to practice their faith.

The US doesn’t have the same problem because it is vast and the immigrants tend to spread out, facilitating assimilation. They remain devout Muslims, but they’re not in a position to impose terms on the majority. And in fairness, the Muslims who immigrate to the US do so with a view to assimilating, as have previous generations of foreigners.

Muslims who finagle their way into Europe come with a grudge and an agenda. They stick with their own kind, assimilation being the furthest thing from their minds. Whereas the ones who go to America go because they are attracted by the modernity and enlightenment of the West and want to be part of it, the ones who come to Europe arrive stiff-necked with disapproval.

Finally, perhaps someone knows … but the Muslims who go to America may come from different societies to the tribes who come to Britain, say. We shouldn’t make the mistake of seeing them as one big, unthinking lump. Muslims from Malaysia, or the Gulf states, for example, are modern, open-minded and comfortable with Western ideas, without their faith being diminished in any way. The ones who get in to Britain and France, drawn by family and tribal ties already living here, may be from less civilised places- like Pakistan – which are more fundamentalist.

Those who arrive in Europe with a grudge and an agenda should be sent packing to further their agenda elsewhere. They won’t be contributing anything to the host society anyway. Those who come fizzing with ideas and ambition and seek the freedom of the West to succeed should be welcomed. We should differentiate.

Shawn, Andrew Ian Dodge, Mike James, Peter Cuthberson, and JRT have more or less said what has to be said on this issue. I only have the following point to add.

Perry de Havilland and ‘None’ are optimistic about the future. But they give no concrete examples of similar situations in the past, i.e. specifically cases in which host non-Muslim populations imposed their values on invading or immigrating Muslims. They give none because there are none. And in all societies in which Muslims have initially constituted a minority, they have eventually become a majority, thanks mainly to their higher birth rate and conversion to Islam of the aboriginal host population.

Lebanon is a typical example – in the 1940s this multicultural exemplar had a Christian majority; today Christians are a persecuted 30% minority. Israel is an even more tragic case –and might even be called the West’s demographic mine canary in the sense that what is happening there now is a pretty good indication of what is going to happen to us in the near future if we don’t get our act together. Israel is facing a demographic apocalypse as Arabs outbreed their Jewish counterparts to such a degree that within a few decades Jews may well become a minority west of the Jordan River.

And far from birth rates inevitably converging as a function of economic growth (as ‘None’ suggests), the opposite may occur:

“Currently, Israeli Jews have on average about 2.1 children per family. Ten years ago the Jewish family’s birth rate was about 2.5 children per family and twenty years ago it was close to 3. By contrast, the Israeli Arab birth rate currently stands at about 4.5 children per family (10 years ago the number was about 4.8, not a significant difference relative to their current birth rate). The current Bedouin birth rate: 7.2 (a decade ago it was 6.5).”
(Source: http://www.t-b-s.org/Demographic.html). In other words, the Jewish birth rate has been falling more rapidly than the Arab rate.

“It seems that its “ok” for an old hunched over Orthodox Jewish woman to cover her hair…but for a young muslim woman to do it…it suddenly becomes a threat and alarm bells sound.”

For good reasons.

Orthodox Judaism has not been in conflict with the West for nearly 1300 years, and has no historical anti-Western animus. Islam has, and does. Also, Orthodox Judaism is not a missionary religion that believes it must convert the world to its creed, Islam is such a faith. Orthodox Judaism has no problem living under secular rule. On the other hand Islam is not just a private religious creed, it is also a political doctrine, and this makes Islam unique amongst the worlds religions. Muhammed was not just a religious leader, but a political one. This theocratic political aspect of Islamic teaching makes orthodox Islam a rival to Western classical liberal ideas. In the United States so called “moderate” mainstream Muslim organisations have said that the Constitution should be replaced by the Quran. I have never heard of any Jewish group, mainstream or otherwise, claim that my countries Constitution should be replaced by the Torah.

The truth is that Islam is in cinflict with the West, and with all non-Muslim civilisations, and always has been. Judaism is not.

The basic question (stating the obvious) is this: will the Barbarians overrun the West and destroy it’s civilization, or will they assimilate and integrate into Western civilization?
It’s ok, and conforting to be an optimist like Perry, especially as it is new year today.
On the other hand we must remember the old Greco-Roman civilization that was destroyed by the Barbarians, and mankind was sunk in 1000 years of darkness.
I am inclined towards the optimistic approach, but I’m not sure.
Nobody knows for certain, and, even if the doomsayers’ scenario is correct, there is very little we can do about it. (Maybe have more babies ? Ok. Just do it !)

Shawn – That’s the nub. Thanks. Parenthetically, Jews have earned universal respect for their intellectual and scientific achievements. They are also great contributors to the civil society, with staggeringly generous bequeathments to art museums such as the Guggenheims and many others. We know that we are all the better for their presence in our societies.

Come now, racialist pessimists. Look at the facts. Western secular capitalism has been on a very nearly unbroken roll for 200 years, posting a strong record of expansion, and taking (old-school) liberal ideals along for the ride. I don’t know if there is a single country where this model has taken root and been thrown out by Muslims. Iran, perhaps, stands as the sole counter-example, and it will be back in the fold soon enough.

Because it is blind to race and creed, and because it can and does deliver material wealth unmatched by any other system, Western secular capitalism is the universal solvent of race and creed. What the racialists among the commenters fail to recognize is that it is perfectly possible to be a good observant Muslim in a secular capitalist society, but impossible to have a successful capitalist society run by a Muslim theocracy. For this reason, over time, secular capitalism will overwhelm radical Muslim societies. They simply cannot compete, regardless of birth rates, because we can and will make their children into good little capitalists, while they cannot make our liberal democracies into little caliphates.

Heh! She may of course have realised that the hijab looks damned sexy on the right person, is low maintenance, and easy to wear.

Much like the hundreds of Kuwaiti girls here who sometimes dress like Westerners, but often prefer to wear the hijab for the reasons stated above. It is no surprise that Calvin Klein, Versace, and the like have for several years been running lines of these clothes.

And if anybody wants to dispute that many girls look sexy in them, I invite you to fly to Kuwait for a weekend.

Seeing as so many people are endorsing Charles’ fears on this, I’d like to affirm my membership of Perry’s “heroic optimist” club. Here are a few of the reasons why:

1. It is simplistic, to say the least, to assume that sons and daughters born of Muslim immigrants will, as a rule, inherit their parents philosophy. Even if you were to grant that current welfare arrangements hinder the selection process that would normally favour the “westernised, enterprising” Muslim immigrant, there is no predictable corrollary that their children would ignore the evidence in front of their eyes about the superiority of liberal capitalism over feudal theocracy.

2. It is an unsafe assertion that those who live under feudal theocracies or other Islamist dictatorships do so voluntarily. There is no reason, other than prejudice, to assume that a muslim country may not be a liberal capitalist democracy.

3. Rome’s decline, however imaginatively resonant it may seem, has really nothing to do with the conflict between the ideas of liberal capitalist democracy and feudal theocracy. Despite what chomskyites might believe, there is no centrally controlled liberal capitalist empire which has succeeded by military might.

4. This idea has succeeded because of its patent merits and not because of demography. Liberal capitalism is a meme not a gene

RCDean – with respect, I scarcely know where to begin. (First, by the way, as one of the supposed “racialists”, I particularly pointed out in my post that many Muslims from modern, enlightened countries like Malaysia and the Emirates have no trouble fitting into the Western template, and suffer no diminution of their faith by so doing.) I am by no means tarring everyone with the same brush.

How you gonna keep ‘em down on the farm, after they’ve seen Paree? Well, many of ‘em actually *live* in Paree and Lille and Lyons and are working actively to turn them into bigoted Muslim medieval hell holes where even Christian girls fear to leave their homes without wearing a Muslim scarf. So open-mindedness and capitalism don’t always win out over bigotry

Frank McGahon – “Even if you were to grant that current welfare arrangements hinder the selection process that would normally favour the “westernised, enterprising” Muslim immigrant, there is no predictable corrollary that their children would ignore the evidence in front of their eyes about the superiority of liberal capitalism over feudal theocracy.”

Oh. Is that why so many second and third generation British Muslims went off to Afghanistan to join the Taliban to fight for the destruction of Britain and the West? Or did I miss some finer point of reasoning here? Seems to me they saw the evidence of capitalism before their eyes, having been born into its midst, and judged it wicked and worthy of destruction.

The chasm is deeper than optimists would like to believe. It’s a fight between individualism, enlightenment and progress, and bigotry and fear born of ignorance in the desert and clung to superstitiously despite the evidence that surrounds them.

Tim, you can dress any beautiful sexy girl in the most horrible dowdy rags and she will make even the rags look beautiful and sexy… it is not the clothes that cause beauty to be… it is the nature of the girl and how we imagine her!

As for a man like me – To make ME beautiful and sexy – You would have to put me in a burkha

In Singapore, the unspoken fear is of the islamic/malay minority outbreeding the chinese majority and becoming the majority population, with all the negative outcomes that engendered. Frankly speaking, the entire fabric of our society would collapse in time.

Islam/malays are the disproportionate occupants of our prisons. On average, they score worse in academic achievements. My chemistry honours class does not have a single malay/islam despite our class size being 50 plus. Indians are an even smaller minority, but they’re quite successful. It all boils down to one thing: Something(I won’t say it’s islam, though it’s possibly a factor) is holding the muslims back, and despite all the extra leg ups the government gives them, they still cannot compete with the other races.

The issue became so pressing a few years back that our political leaders were exhorting the educated chinese population to breed more. In the end, they settled on a two pronged approach: encouraging the educated chinese to reproduce, and importing skilled immigrants, who are invariably from China or Hong Kong, and I notice, never from muslim countries. The immigrants would hopefully become citizens and settle down in our country(and they do; my brother-in-law is from China).

If you wish for a more extreme example, take a look at Indonesia during the 1997 economic crisis. The chinese left, and took along with them a huge chunk of the nation’s infrastructure. No overachieving minority can endure for long in such conditions, and it seems like the you, non-muslim peoples in Europe, are going to find out first hand what that means.

“It is simplistic, to say the least, to assume that sons and daughters born of Muslim immigrants will, as a rule, inherit their parents philosophy.”

Why?

“Even if you were to grant that current welfare arrangements hinder the selection process that would normally favour the “westernised, enterprising” Muslim immigrant, there is no predictable corrollary that their children would ignore the evidence in front of their eyes about the superiority of liberal capitalism over feudal theocracy.”

Why not? Many Western children do exactly that. The millions of Marxists and anti-globalisation activists would suggest that the liberal capitalist meme is not all-powerful, and evidence in its favor has little to do with it. Western youth have grown up with the evidence all around them, and they have grown up knowing full well the horrors of Soviet Russia and Communist Romania and China under Mao, and this does not stop them from supporting the latest variation on the Marxist meme.

I think it is simplistic to automatically assume that the children of Muslim immigrants will turn into good little liberal capitalists. They may well do. Lets hope so. But what if they dont? Simply leaving it up to fate while at the same time allowing large scale Muslim immigration without any proof that Islam is compatible with liberal democracy, and with 1300 years of evidence that Islam is virulently hostile to the West, is not only simplistic, it is remarkably naive.

Already we are seeing an alliance between radical Islam and the anti-globo left, as was seen at the recent European Social Forum. Along with that we are also seeing a dramtic rise in anti-Semitism towards the Jews. Hatred of Jews and hatred of capitalism have always gone together, and with Europe increasingly dominated by the Marxist Left and the growing power of immigrant Islam, I dont see what there is to be optimistic about in the near future, at least as far as Europe is concerned.

Many Jews were optimistic that sanity and liberalism would win the day in the Weimar Republic. Their optimism died in the concentration camps.

I do not accept the labels of racialist or pessimist that RC Dean uses. An understanding of the ethnic/cultural roots of political ideas does not make a person a racialist. Nor am I opposed to non-Western immigration. On the contrary, I am very much in favor of immigration from countries like China, Japan and Korea because despite lingering authoritarianism these countries have embraced capitalism, science, the modern world and secular politics, and such immigrants can offset the influence of Islam.

In the long run I am an optimist. I do believe that liberal capitalism will triumph. But ideas and values must be fought for and defended. And sometimes that may mean a defensive posture. Limiting large scale Muslim immigration for the near future is a prudent measure while the battle for liberal capitalism is still being fought.

Frank,
Very well said.
“Liberal capitalism is a meme not a gene”
Nice.
Still…
Liberal capitalism is under assault from many directions, from the “genes” and from other “memes” – like say the socialist or tranzi meme. Liberal capitalism is in steady decline; what we have now is NUlabor or EUcratic regimes which aren’t very liberal, not to mention capitalistic.
So, for reasons unrelated to that hijab, I cannot join the club of the heroic optimists; I stay with the cautios optimists, or sceptical optimists.

The muslim problem could be quickly solved with judicious application of pogroms and fission. All we need is the next Event to justify such action in the minds of the superior races. Then the cleansing of these cancerous impurities from our advanced culture can begin.

Perhaps there is a difference between European muslims and American muslims. I am only familiar with the American version.

And I can only say that my observations steer me to the optimists’ club.

I live in a small, southern, university city and schooled and worked within that university system for many, many years. I have seen more than my share of young muslims assimilate toward and embrace western ideology and culture. My exposure to the muslim college crowd was extensive at one time because my brother-in-law was muslim and he and my sister belonged to the international student club for years. We, as a family, hosted many a “get-together” and I parlayed my services as a tutor/proof-reader to quite a few of these students to supplement my income during my undergraduate studies.

Frankly, it doesn’t take them very long to see the benefits of our culture – both men and women. I couldn’t begin to count the number of immigrants I’ve known who initially vowed to maintain the “old ways” but within their first year started veering toward liberal attitudes, changing their plans to return to their respective homelands. I could count on one hand the number who actually did avoid assimilation and returned to their home country.

Not only would it not be unusual, it would be the norm to see these young muslims shacking up together, eating ham and pineapple pizza and swigging Kentucky bourbon. Clearly, they enjoyed the economic prosperity they found here and the freedom of their individuality. Quite a few of these young folk got quite wild with their new found freedoms, not unlike the stereotypical preacher’s daughter.

One such example is my very beautiful Palestinian sister-in-law. My first encounter with her was as my college room-mate. She explained that she was devout and that it was her duty to convert me. I didn’t quarrel with her about it, but simply carried on with my wild college self. Within 2 month she was wearing mini-skirts with go-go boots and dreaming of employment as a model. She even experienced a long stint as a topless dancer. She loved the money and the attention. And she bore no shame about it.

Some prejudices prevailed. Men from certain ethnicities would be more than happy to date or shack up with others but would vow that they could not marry due to ethnic superiority/inferiority. IE: the Iranian boys could not marry the Palestinian girls. Good for play, not for marriage.

Other than these prejudices, the vast majority that I have kept up with over the years live and work within their communities without any glitches, raise their children (not litters but 2 or 3 kids) as Americans and could not be distinguished from the non-muslims at work or in their respective communities.

Granted, these are just anectdotal observations. But I find it hard to imagine my observations are unique.

A clarification is in order: the proposition under discussion is that the Angelic Liberty Meme will be outcompeted by the Demonic Muslim Meme in the eternal Clash of Ideas. It is claimed that the Muslim meme’s “aggressive, violent conversion” strategy combined with the “infect your horde of broodlings” strategy is superior to the Liberty Meme’s “lure of hedonism” and “power of advanced technology” strategies.

My claim: If the above is true, the Liberty meme will be defeated by either the Fascist/Nationalist meme or the Muslim meme regardless of our actions. I claim that IF it is impossible to stop the Demon Muslim Horde without violence, then attempts to defeat the horde through coercion will lead to fascism, and quickly.

Many suggest the intermediate strategy of immigration controls. If the Muslim meme breeds faster, this will only delay the inevitable — large numbers of the fertile demons are already here! Exponential growth will take care of the rest.

Other tactics would contain the Muslim threat, but at the expense of Liberty. Coercive prohibitions against the public display of Muslim characteristics (banning Mosques, burqas, pro-Muslim speech, etc.), would terminally compromise Liberty. We could fan the fires of racist hatred enough to launch pogroms and ethnic cleansing campaigns against the Demons in our midst. This works — there aren’t many Muslims left in Serbia, nor Jews in Poland — but again Liberty loses.

So this discussion is basically moot. Either the Liberty Meme is indeed stronger, or we’re all screwed anyway. Would you prefer cultural purity (and the necessary fascism) or Islamofascism? I suspect most people would prefer that “the other” be genocided to protect their culture, so that’s where we’re probably headed — the Final Solution to the Muslim Problem.

“Tim, you can dress any beautiful sexy girl in the most horrible dowdy rags and she will make even the rags look beautiful and sexy… it is not the clothes that cause beauty to be… it is the nature of the girl and how we imagine her!”

Very true of course, but I find the girls in the hijab often look better than those in the Western clothes. It’s all down to personal choice of course, but I find they walk around with an air of mystery which their otherwise garbed counterparts seem to be lacking. It’s worth noting that many of the hijabs are figure-huggingly tight, which kind of defeats its very purpose.

cbk – We are talking about Islamic immigration from a European perspective. I mentioned in a post above that the American experience is totally different. No offence, but please pay attention to previous posts to understand the arguments.

The young Muslims who come to the United States for education and to settle come full of optimism and determination to succeed and most of them are from moderate, enlightened countries. And they are educated. And they speak English.

Par contre, Britain and France opened the floodgates to ignorant, bigotted hordes from our former colonies. These were people from fundamentalist societies with no education, no aspirations (other than to get at the welfare trough ASAP), who bred copiously and encouraged a meme of resentment, disapproval and hatred for the host society in their children. They never learned to speak English and discouraged their children from integrating and are vocal in their hatred of the host society, which they consider, from the POV of squatting in the desert sand and reading the runes, decadent and worthy of punishment by Allah. Thousands of violent and resentful young men are only too ready to be persuaded by hatred-spewing mans in mosques to give Allah a hand.

Once again: the American experience and the kind of educated Muslims who emigrate to the United States are as different as chalk and cheese from the bigotted masses we allowed into our social systems from our former colonies in some European countries. I’m sorry, but your happy clappy picture doesn’t apply and cannot be made to apply.

I wonder what sort of communities the “optimists” inhabit: maybe they should spend an afternoon as I did recently, tracing an irregular route across North London from the Edgware Road to Ruislip. It’s a long time since I used to get around that area much, and frankly it was depressing and alarming. I began to imagine there was a halal butcher every six shops or so… Am I a racist? Sure, though probably no more than most. But seeing your own turf change its demographics so radically is not a recipe for civil calm. I do not observe the level of cultural assimilation / economic integration that is put forward as a cause for optimism.

Verity: Oh. Is that why so many second and third generation British Muslims went off to Afghanistan to join the Taliban to fight for the destruction of Britain and the West?

So many? How many? 50? 100? Out of a population of how many? And in any case it just make my point that some of UK Muslims are radicalised because they see what happens when our vastly superior culture comes into contact with theirs, that the Dark Ages muslim memes disolve into nothingness and their sisters end up wearing short dresses and marrying English guys.

I’m sorry Verity. I must have missed the part where “West”, in the post titled “Triumph of the West” was defined exclusively as Europe.

Not only did I pay attention to previous posts, but I’m not offering an argument. Only personal observations.

You are free to ignore them.

Re-reading the arguments put forth, it seems to me the problems described are peculiarly European and encompass more than simply “the Muslim Problem.”

I believe RCDean, whose optimism also touched a nerve with you, wasn’t talking about the city of “gay Paris” but “Sweet Home Chicago”. I agree with him completely when he says, “Because it is blind to race and creed, and because it can and does deliver material wealth unmatched by any other system, Western secular capitalism is the universal solvent of race and creed.” This appears to be the case in America.

Methinks there are liberal capitalist societies and then there are not so liberal capitalist societies. Having never been to Europe, I’ll let the pessimism of this discussion speak for itself.

Maybe the Great Hegemon can be of help to you in the future when your fascists/islamofascists come full bloom.

A random sighting of a beatiful girl in a hijab causes us to plunge into a profound discussion of the future of Western civilization. Amazing.

Despite my caution and scepticism I must side with the optimists. Bad as the problems with unassimilated Muslim immigrants might be, I can’t see Islam bringing down Western civilization. It’s a matter of proportions. Not every ugly problem is big enough to topple our civilization. The West has survived in the last century two World Wars and a Cold War, and emerged triumphant. It has staying power.

The bigger danger is the attack from inside, by the socialist-welfare-tranzi camp. Of course – the two threats are related. When a body is weakened from inside it has less power to repulse an outside attack. Still I see the Islamo-fascist threat as a big, big nuisance, not a mortal threat.

OK, Perry. Let me take the most generous number you offer me – 100. One hundred potential killers of British civilians, once they’ve been trained up in the not-so-fine art of suicide bombing.

Out of a population of young men between, shall we say 21 and 28? What percentage is that? I don’t know at all. But I think 100 fanatical young men who are out to teach the host nation a lesson, and will be given help to do so, is too large a number.

Some of their sisters end up marrying English guys and wearing whatever they feel like wearing and if she can get away without being murdered for that crime or having boiling fat thrown on her face by her “disgraced” parents, that is definitely to the good. My heart is with her.

But the Pakistani male is not going to marry an English girl. They will contribute enthusiastically to the population of little welfare dependent bastards, but they don’t marry English girls, who are fast and easy in their eyes. They use of them.

cbk- I think RC Dean was referring to the well known old WWI song. I think he is too direct to suddenly be bringing in an arcane reference to Chicago.

Islamofascism is not the only problem in Europe, that is for sure. However, as Jacob implies, I think there is an unsettling synergy – perhaps unintentional, perhaps not – between Islamofascism and the socialist/welfare/tranzi camp.

Out of a population of young men between, shall we say 21 and 28?What percentage is that? I don’t know at all.

I think that’s too narrow, 18 to 40 seems to be a better bet looking at the people claimed to have gone. Let’s do some back of the envelope analysis from a Muslim population of 1.6 million (according to the first google site I hit) [NB: I didn’t limit this to purely Pakistan, as, for example, Richard Reid is anything but a Pakistani] – say 800,000 men, that’s going to be the central block, maybe 300-400,000 – so that’s 0.03% of the population.

But I think 100 fanatical young men who are out to teach the host nation a lesson, and will be given help to do so, is too large a number.

Actually that looks pretty low to me. I’d peg the disaffected as higher than that. And, almost certainly for the reasons which Perry quite astutely points out. They are seeing what happens to their root culture in a more liberal environment and are reacting against it. That’s the West’s strongest card frankly, much stronger than attempting military might.

The young Muslims who come to the United States for education and to settle come full of optimism and determination to succeed and most of them are from moderate, enlightened countries. And they are educated. And they speak English.

My mother works for the Post Office and takes calls all day long from people who have had problems withdrawing their benefits. And as with all call centres dealing with people’s accounts they need to ask security accounts. My mother’ is exsaperated at the amount of first generation immigrant women whose husband’s ring up on their behalf because they can’t speak a word of English. All they need to do is learn how to say their date of birth and a password but they don’t need to make an effort with all the state funded interpreters and Urdu call centres.

Anyway I digress my point is that if immigrants can’t speak English then how will western ideas and culture ever get through to Muslims?

I went to school in East Hertfordshire, at the time we had a huge immigrant population mostly from Yugoslavia (both Serbs and Crotians) and Italy.

At my school (Roman Catholic) most of the kids arrived unable to speak a word of English and didn’t have parents who spoke English. They left school speaking a perfect Herts Cockney. OTOH some of them still have parents who can’t operate in English even after decades. Local churches even have Italian spoken mass for them on Sunday evenings.

I think you’re right that RC Dean is an American commentator; but like most commentators here, he has an Anglo-American point of view and assumes a certain amount of knowledge on the part of readers. No, I do not understand your reference to “Sweet Home Chicago” just because it’s a big American city as opposed to the capital of Paris.

I think most of the people here are tooootally over reacting. I can relate to the frustrations about immigrants coming in and making a mess in previously clean communities: ie, with crime, etc. I have seen it here too, even among groups living in the US. For example, I live in a very rural part of Maryland. In the past 10 yrs, there has been a huge influx of Hispanics, African Americans, poor whites, and immigrants from the large cities into the suburbs. There has been a huge surge in crime, traffic is crazy, and just the whole place seems to look different than what i was used to..etc. Now can I honestly say that because of this, that there is now a clash of religions or culture? Ofcourse not, it’s a socio-economic problem that simply has to be dealt with on that level (education, schools, jobs). For instance, if one takes a 40 minute drive north to Montgomery county, an area just north to where I live, the % of immigrants living there are the same as where I live…but its a totally different situation. The crime rate is lower, it is a better developed county, its also is one of the cleanest places to live in the US, the educational system there is the best in the state, it is also one of the richest counties in the US; and on a side note, it also has a huge muslim community as well as with many other immigrants that don’t seem to be causing problems. The % of immigrants is probably the same between Montogomery county and where i live. So what is the difference? Well its obvious as I mentioned above (schools, economic prosperity…etc). In regards to muslims in general, I read sometime last year that Muslims in the US, have a higher per capita income than their American counterparts (>$60,000 vs. $45,000; I will try to get a reference for that statistic whenever I find it), so clearly there isnt anything inherent in religion or culture for these problems that we find in Europe. There very well might be a few wacko Islamists stirring up trouble, but that is a distraction from the true underlying economic problems facing communities. In regards to wacko Islamists, Most Muslims don’t really give them much importance…just as most regular Christians laugh off Pat Robertson and the Jerry Fallwells of the world. Just because a group of people are loud and the most vocal doesnt mean they have a strong power base. Muslims for the most part are embracing modernity, looking for ways to make a living. But what does modernity actually insinuate? That is the crux of the issue I find here. I feel that even if the Muslims in Europe all of a sudden became economically prosperous, but retained traditional customs: ie, wearing a head covering, you folks would still be upset. So what I do find on this site is a constant theme that in order for Muslims to fit in and be “modern”, they need to dress like “us”, they need to throw away their religion, need to be open to premarital sex, they need to drink, they need to partyyyyyyy like us, they need to wear mini skirts….and if they dont…then alas! our western civilization is under threat from these nonconformist…who threaten our “culture.” What nonsense, “culture” is relative. 50 yrs ago in Europe, I bet many Christian women wore head coverings or hats. Here, in the worlds only superpower and modern nation on earth, I still live in an area where there are many Traditionalist Christians, who for the most part, dont drink, the women wear long dresses, and their families are quite patriarchal… and if you saw them, you would notice that in many cases these people are traditional like many traditional muslims families. These white Christians, I might add, are poorer than most of the Muslims living here. Are these white americans from a threat because they don’t wear miniskirts? What is wrong if many muslims have traditional customs? I agree its not pleasant seeing a woman in a burkha, and even though it’s a rare sighting, it is spooky sometimes. But in regards to the hijab, which is just covering one’s hair with a scarf…that is such a benign non-threatening action. To make it an issue is a reflection of how pathetically insecure Europeans are and are simply making an issue about it just serves to give importance to fanatical groups who are looking for every excuse to be upset that the west is against Islam. Why make an issue of a non-issue? Is it insecurity on your part? 99% of women who wear the scarf are not doing it because they “want to pressure” westerners to adopt Islamic customs. There is no pressure, no one is forcing anything. Yet, simply the fact that someone saw a stylish woman wear the hijab, and make it an issue for a “blog” is humorous. No wonder Europe can never catch up to America. Here we leave pathetic wimpy issues on the side and move forward

Perhaps we should be clear here, we are talking about the relative superiority of liberal capitalist democracies versus Feudal theocracies based on Islam. We are not talking about a preferred version of liberal capitalist democracy. The discussion about how individual freedom is affected by all sorts of statist strains within liberal capitalist democracies is separate to this. The point here is that, say, the UK is preferable to Saudi Arabia, not that New Labour represents the acme of governance.

Verity: Perry has noted that the numbers of British born fanaticists is tiny when compared to the overall British muslim population. The reason this is important is not, as you seem to think, in assessing likely risk of terrorist attack. The reason it is important is to do with the deterministic nature of the argument: Muslim immigration inexorably leads to British islamofascists outnumbering the “host” population.

This “corrollary” relies on a predictable, consistent takeup of extremist islamic views among 2nd generation immigrants. This simply isn’t the case. 0.03% takeup is the suggestion above but even if you multiplied that by a hundred it is still less than the number of 2nd generation immigrants who will turn out to be gay.

The counter-argument is easy to demonstrate which is that the vast majority of those who grow up in a free country appreciate the benefits of “free countries”. They will tend to outnumber the cranks whose ideology forces them to make believe this isn’t the case.

Sweet Home Chicago is just another old song reference meant to indicate RC’s optimistic/American perspective as opposed to the pessimistic perspective exhibited by some of the Europeans in this discussion. Where you, Verity, brought in, specifically, Paris as she is presently, I imagine RC had another perspective.

There is not much to “get” except that I think Americans are much more optimistic about the assimilation of Muslims in our society than Europeans apparently are. Perhaps for good reason. I’d be curious to see just how different these attitudes are. And I’d be curious to know the rationale behind these differences. I know of no surveys on the matter.

As Vanessa noted, there is no pressure to alter ones attire, no laws under consideration to that affect. I reference France here. Such laws seem abhorant to me. Folks are expected to assimilate in some ways but not all ways. In some circumstances, but not all circumstances.

Frank says:

“The discussion about how individual freedom is affected by all sorts of statist strains within liberal capitalist democracies is separate to this. The point here is that, say, the UK is preferable to Saudi Arabia, not that New Labour represents the acme of governance.”

This may be true, but wouldn’t it be interesting to know why optimistic assimilation may work in some instances and not in others? If, in fact, assimilation works better in the states than the UK, wouldn’t it be helpful to examine why? In other words, could it be that some strains of liberal capitalism assimilate some immigrants better than other strains of liberal capitalism? What are the barriers to assimilation? And what facilitates assimilation? Perhaps this difference has more to do with a lack of historic baggage than strains of liberalism. I don’t know. I’m asking.

Frankly, from my perspective, there is no doubt my strain of liberal capitalism isn’t in any way threatened by the Muslim immigrant population, even in regions where that population enjoys a relatively high percentage. At this point, the prospect seems laughable. That may change in future.

I live south of Chicago. Closer to New Orleans, in attitude, atmosphere, culture and geography.

“A clarification is in order: the proposition under discussion is that the Angelic Liberty Meme will be outcompeted by the Demonic Muslim Meme in the eternal Clash of Ideas. It is claimed that the Muslim meme’s “aggressive, violent conversion” strategy combined with the “infect your horde of broodlings” strategy is superior to the Liberty Meme’s “lure of hedonism” and “power of advanced technology” strategies.”

Hardly. The proposition under discussion is, can a culture, and therefore its political ideals, be destroyed by a combination of an invading force and internal cultural decline. This has happenned before. Assuming our culture, and therefore its poltical traditions, is different arrogantly ignores history.

“My claim: If the above is true, the Liberty meme will be defeated by either the Fascist/Nationalist meme or the Muslim meme regardless of our actions. I claim that IF it is impossible to stop the Demon Muslim Horde without violence, then attempts to defeat the horde through coercion will lead to fascism, and quickly.”

Containment is the answer, just as it was with the Soviet Union. Containment requires only the use of targeted violence when necessary, such as in Afghanistan and Iraq, with limitations on immigration, and active support for individuals and organisations in the Islamic world who advocate liberty. I see no reason why this would automatically lead to fascism. Nor is it too late as you claim becauase large numbers of Muslims are already in Europe. The Muslim population bubble will burst in time, likeley in thirty to fifty years, so it is possible for Europe to ride it out. But that does mean not adding to the problem by continuing mass immigration policies from the Islamic world.

I have never claimed that the Islamic meme is superior to the liberty meme, but neither do I believe that ideas must not be fought for and defended. Of course the liberty meme is superior, but it requires people, such as the good folk at Samizdata, to promote it and fight for it, and in the larger sense it requires political policies to preserve and defend it.

Immigration restrictions do not contradict libertarian ideals as Ilana Mercer has made clear in a number of articles.

Since everyone, optimist and alarmist, seems to agree that there is more of a problem with Muslims in European countries than in America, I have to ask: Why is this a problem now? What about the previous half millenium during which the Muslim world abutted Europe? Why didn’t they outbreed Europeans in Russia, Austro-Hungary and Spain? Why didn’t they triumph in India – they were there first – and were more numerous? Muslims certainly haven’t changed over this time. Europeans, for all your fears about Vienna, conquered the world, including the Muslim world. What is different about you now – for it is certainly you who have changed -not them? Why this insecurity? Americans don’t seem to share it and you didn’t have it 50 years ago. Is it the post Christian nature of your culture? Is it too much socialism, which perhaps has left you no longer the masters of your own fates?

As an American reading this rather shrill discussion, which has descended to semi-serious mention of pogroms and ‘final solutions’ and has even had the normally genial Verity rounding on CBK, it appears to me the significant questions are not about Muslims, but about the lack of confidence in the culture of present day European countries.

Doug – Here is my genial reply to some of the above posts. Why is terrorism becoming such an issue now? The person who asked this question should ask the imans in Saudia Arabia who began demanding jihads in the West. Why now? Who knows how their mad minds work?

I couldn’t read all the way through Vanessa’s paragraphless screed, but she seems to equate American blacks and Hispanics moving into the neighbourhood with a fanatic alien religion bent on destroying the enlightened West.

I agree with Shawn’s post immediately preceeding, and I also think that the socialist/welfare/tranzi meme and the Muslim extremist meme in Europe produce a dangerous synergy that we should not ignore for the sake of not wishing to appear alarmist.

Obviously, Europe’s fundamentalist “communities” cannot defeat Europe and all the fundamentalist nut jobs worldwide cannot defeat the West. But we’re in for some hazardous times unless the British government jettisons political correctness and closes down the radical mosques and deports the mad mullahs. Anything less is seen as weakness (as George Bush, thank god, understands) and weak creatures seek those weaker than themselves to prey on. A wounded springbok doesn’t go lion hunting. The ineptitude of tranzi governments becomes ever more apparent.

As I said above, Chirac is finally getting the message and I would take a bet that he will act unilaterally before Tony Blair goes on bended knee to seek permission from his European masters.

I’ve just forced my way through the thicket of some of Vanessa’s thoughts, for want of a better word.

Vanessa – we are not upset because so many Muslim immigrants fail to make money, loosen up and shake their booty. We are upset because so many Muslim immigrant groups with a grudge wish to blow us up. As in the WTC, which you doubtless saw on TV. We are snappish because we do not appreciate the temerity of immigrants who wish to import their repulsive shariah law into the Enlightened West. There are plenty of medieval countries they could go to if they’re moved to stoning people to death for adultery.

You say: “I bet 50 years ago Christian women covered their heads or wore hats.” OK. You lose your bet, which was based on the same reasoning some men use for betting on horses: wishful thinking.

Women wore hats in the West 50 years ago for the same reason women in the West wear hats today. They enhance an already pretty face and on a less than pretty face, they can still look striking and stylish. Either way, hats are designed to allure, not to stifle. Christian women covering their heads 50 years ago? Do you have any sense of history at all? Have you been to the movies?

Verity, many European Christian cultures insisted on women wearing modest clothing and covering their heads. Certain Christian fundementalist sects still insist upon the wearing of a hat or head scarf.

I suggest you put on short sleeves and a short dress and try to enter Vacitican City, for example.

Thankfully, this sort of thing is now a minority issue but in the Italian communities I grew up with just 25 years ago, the women were expected to dress and act accordingly.

On the more interesting subject of US versus European Muslims, I suspect there is a huge diffrence in the immigration patterns and types of people.

Dave – Obviously, there is a huge difference in the immigration patterns and types of people. France and Britain took in hordes of people from their former colonies who had probably never seen a light bulb before they got to Britain. The ones who go to the US for education or immigration are educated and come from, in the main, middle class and englightened homes that are light years away from the ignorant, mullah-ridden masses we imported.

Yes, it apears that the nearer you get to the Islamic sector in Eastern Europe, the more likely it was that women would cover their hair on some occasions – like a visit to the Vatican. Italian peasants likewise, although not city dwellers. Probably Greeks as well. The closer to the Islamic world, the more likely (it would seem). The Christian “certain fundamentalist sects” that you refer to had/have absolutely no influence on the mores of Western society.

In northern Europe, this wasn’t done. Roman Catholics wore a veil or hat to church, but that’s all. In France, Britain, Holland, Germany blah blah blah women always fixed their hair to look attractive and wouldn’t dream of being told to cover it up. Take a gander at pictures of Marie-Antoinette, for example, who lived, for the benefit of Vanessa, around 250 years ago, to see the importance of the hair-do in the West.

I must say I am – perhaps in my New Year mood – rather unimpressed by the shrill and paranoiac tone of many of the comments above. (Okay, some of the remarks may have been “half-serious”, such as references to progroms, but that is rather unamusing). We should not as a matter of course assume that trends of population growth among ethnic group X or Y are set in stone. They can change.

My question to the pessimists is this – are you saying that any would-be immigrant to the West sould be obliged to forswear his/her religion and embrace, say, atheism?

I find the lack of confidence in the resilience of liberal individual society rather troubling. If we cannot be sure of our own views, what chance have we got converting other people?

Jonathan – Again, I think we’re talking about two different sets of people: the ones from some primitive, not to say barbaric former colonies who the Brits and French allowed in around 40 years ago. (I wasn’t in the country, so my time frame may be slightly off.) These came in with an attitude that they were owed something. They had contempt for us and our society and taught their children to despise us. (Obviously, I’m using a broad brush; I know you’ll pick up on the shorthand.) All their children heard was what was wrong with the West and how ghastly we are. All this rubbish was encouraged by socialist councils, who provided, besides free homes and heating, translators in every known dialect so the immigrants would never be discommodated by having to learn English.

Fast forward two generations to the type of immigrant/student who comes to the West today. These are the ones that have got cbk so confused. They are from middle class homes in big modern cities. They’ve had liberal/fairly liberal educations. They are totally fluent in English. They’re ambitious. They long ago adopted Western dress. They don’t murder their daughters for going out with a Christian boy (although they may try to dissuade them) and they don’t throw boiling cooking fat in their faces as punishment, either. They are as revolted as we are by the notion of clitorectomies. They don’t just associate with one another; they get out there and mix.

The only thing they have in common is Islam. Just like the only thing the Queen has in common with Jerry Falwell is they’re both Christian. It’s two completely different sets of people, and it’s the first group that is breeding the troublemakers. And only Europe, not America, was hit with the first group because they came from our former colonies and for some reason I was never able to follow, we somehow owed hundreds of thousands of them life at the British taxpayer’s expense.

It might be instructive to note that the first group is the only immigrant group to Britain that has resisted integration into the host society. I realise that you know all this, Jonathan, but this was also for the benefit of Americans, who are missing the first chapter.

“Verity, many European Christian cultures insisted on women wearing modest clothing and covering their heads. Certain Christian fundementalist sects still insist upon the wearing of a hat or head scarf.

I suggest you put on short sleeves and a short dress and try to enter Vacitican City, for example.”

I dont care what private religious beliefs or practices people want to follow, so long as they obey the law of the land. What I do care about is when millions of members of a particular sect choose to support or actively wage terrorist war against the rest of the world for the puposes of of forming a global theocracy by violence. When the Amish start blowing themselves up amongst the civilians of Philadelphia then mabey we can talk about some kind of moral equivalency between fundamentalist Islam and conservative Christianity. But right now there is none.

“My question to the pessimists is this – are you saying that any would-be immigrant to the West sould be obliged to forswear his/her religion and embrace, say, atheism?”

I am not a pessimist, I am a realist.

Heard of any terrorist Buhddists lately? Do mainstream Buhddist and Hindu organisations in the West call for the establishment of Buhddist/Hindu theocracies? Come on.

The problem is not religion in general, and not the religion of Buhddists or Hindu’s or Animists or non-Muslim immigrants. The problem is specifically and solely Islam. Has everyone been asleep since Sept.11?

“I find the lack of confidence in the resilience of liberal individual society rather troubling. If we cannot be sure of our own views, what chance have we got converting other people?”

It is not a lack of confidednce. It is a belief that Western liberal ideals must be defended and fought for. Is not that the whole point of Samizdata.net? Does the establishment of this web site to promote and defend libertarianism reveal a lack of confidence? Since when did ideas win the day without anyone promoting, defending and fighting for them?

It is simply being realistic to understand the threats to liberty and realistic to assume that liberty must be defended and fought for. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

By the way, I thin you will find that the person supposedly advocating genocide was just trying to smear the realists by implying that we are Nazi’s. I think the tone of the realists has been fair and reasonable.

Shawn, it is all very well to describe yourself and Verity as “realists”. Forgive me if I can’t assent to this characterisation. The impression you both would give of a vast seething mass of alienated British Muslims who remain, generation after generation, avowedly, defiantly unintegrated is hardly that of a “realist”. A “realist”-ic assessment would conclude that, while there are certainly many British Muslim extremists, they are not representative of the vast majority of British Muslims.

The implication of the soi-disant “realist”‘s position is that, in order to fight Islamic extremists, it is necessary to adopt anti-Muslim policies and make a special immigration policy designed to exclude muslims. Even if you ignore the fact that the type of authoritarian government required to implement such measures would be abhorrent to any Libertarian, this is a singularly ineffective approach to dealing with terrorism.

“I think we’re talking about two different sets of people: the ones from some primitive, not to say barbaric former colonies who the Brits and French allowed in around 40 years ago. (I wasn’t in the country, so my time frame may be slightly off.)”

I fear it is more than your “time frame” which is “off”. Which “barbaric former colonies” did you have in mind?. I can’t think of a single former British colony which is “barbaric”. Most of the immigration into the UK in the 1950s and 1960s was from the (non-Islamic) West Indies. Jamaica, Trinidad, Guyana, Barbados etc. are hardly “barbaric” and indeed contain plenty of light bulbs).

There was also immigration into the UK from (Hindu and Muslim) India and (Muslim) Pakistan, neither of which nuclear countries are barbaric or unfamiliar with lightbulbs.

Those who argue that there aren’t any non-integrating Muslims living in the US are living in a fool’s paradise. 80 percent of US mosques are controlled by Wahabbis who believe that sharia must rule the entire world.

There are plenty of irredentist and non-integrative Muslims living in the US. Muslims who openly practice polygamy in contravention of our bigamy laws; Muslims who refuse to carry car insurance because they think it is “haram”; Muslims who believe that they don’t have to follow “kaffir” US laws, etc.

And I should know: I’m related to some of them.

The US is only a little bit behind in Europe in these matters. We will see secessionist movements in high-Muslim population states like Michigan within the next 40-50 years.

I present an example of a once liberal, fairly open and tolerant state falling into the hands of the radical islamists.

The state of Kelantan in Malaysia, won by the radical islamic PAS party, where it was once dominated by UMNO. Though the state is largely a rural area, it still had more than enough evidence of liberalism and tolerance, well, once upon a time.

But there was a sudden lurch towards radical islamism, and suddenly even female Malay pop singers were staying away. PAS implemented a whole series of laws meant to promote moral responsibility, and it applied to everybody, even if they were just passing through. The wearing of the hijab was made compulsory for Malay women.

I should know. I visited the state often when I was young when I had an aunt living there. Her family still lives there, but her children have all left the state for more tolerant pastures.

The muslims there do want the comforts of the west, but none of the ‘corrupting’ attitudes that makes such comforts possible. Their young are sent to religious schools where they don’t learn english, math, science and technology. Instead they learn theology and more radical bullsh*t.

Indeed, before 9/11, there was a lot of political commentary about UMNO losing ground steadily to PAS as PAS appealed more to the Malay/Muslim population by promoting ever more ‘islamic’ legislation. If liberalism was so good, why didn’t the women speak out more? Why did the muslims, with all the evidence of the virtues of liberalism right on their doorstep, decide that they don’t really need it?

Sure, you could argue that social and economic liberalism are two separate issues, but the core issue remains: Why were they willing(half of them, the women, at least) to give up so much of their individual rights for apparently nothing in return? For what? Spiritual sustenance?

The only reasonable answer for this phenomenon is that somehow, [i]the radical islamic creed is more powerful than the liberty creed[/i]. The evidence lies in front of us.

Wonder why Mahathir and his goons are so gleefully taking advantage of the War on Terror? Because it offers them a chance to roll back the islamic tide. A reprieve of sorts.

1) Love of my people and my land is burned on my heart, not love of liberal capitalism. To hell with an economic system. I desire my people to survive. Perry’s dusky capitalists would mean their suicide.

2) We are not at war with moslems. We are not at war with immigrants. We are not at war with anyone. Vast demograph change is in train precisely because we are doing nothing towards our own survival. So, Charles, sorry but we are NOT engaged in a great battle of blood, except incidentally. We are looking the other way.

3) The speed of racial change in England may indeed slow as the optimists think. It may also increase. The end result may take 40 years or it may 100 or even longer. But speed is not the issue. Outcome is the issue, and the outcome is still racial suicide.

4) By dint of being English, as opposed to transnational capitalist, we have no quarrel with Islaam. Such as it is, the battle of ideas is being fought first and foremost against the race-denying, egalitarian left and its fellow travellers among the minorities. Together these inform “decent” liberal opinion and, thereby, the public discourse. English self-identification in pursuit of English survival is excluded from that. The battle, then, is to change this situation.

5) The other principle obstacle to our survivial is our own decadence. No race has ever survived its acquisition. But I was a small child in the 1950’s and well remember that other life, before the sweet rot set in. Many times since I have met with a renewed vision and sense of purpose. I do not yet conclude that the English are anywhere near beyond redemption, but we are heading that way.

6) On the issue of optimism generally, it runs the risk of being wrong. That is to court disaster plain and simple. The stakes are too high for bien pensant insouciance.

It is good to see that you have abandoned disingenuousness and the pretence of Libertarianism and made clear that your primary interest is in the preservation of the “white” race in England.

You may consider yourself an English nationalist, but I don’t think it’s unfair of me to guess that skin colour trumps English culture in your worldview (thought experiment: which person would you prefer to come and live in your village: a Black British historian/shakespearean actor or a Danish Dentist?)

It is an important distinction because physical appearance is one thing and cultural heritage is another. If you had a choice for the future as follows:

a) English culture will prevail as it always has, with no significant changes but interbreeding between natives and immigrants means that most people are “beige” as opposed to white or black.

or

b) By some method (perhaps England adopts a “save the race” policy, encourages non-whites to emigrate and encourages immigration from “white countries”) most people look “white” but little of English culture remains.

Which would you prefer?

Your choice will tell you whether your first loyalty is to the nation or the race. It seems to me that, whatever way you cut it, “the race”‘s interests run counter to the interests of libertarianism and there is no point pretending otherwise.

“The impression you both would give of a vast seething mass of alienated British Muslims who remain, generation after generation, avowedly, defiantly unintegrated is hardly that of a “realist”.

Yes it is, it is true in much of Europe, and as Susan pointed out, it is increasingly true in the U.S. Try walking through the Islamicised areas of Paris sometime. Your problem is your use of the word “extremist”. The problem is not extremists or extreme forms of Islam, the problem is Islam full stop. There is no such thing as moderate Islam. Does any libertarian think there are moderate forms of socialism? Is authoritarianism moderate because it is not quite at the level of Hitler or Stalin? Why are some libertarians prepared to fiercely and strongly critique the evils of socialism, but get wobbly at the knees and politically correct when dealing with Islam? Criticising Islam is not being a racist or a bigot. One of the strongest critiques of Islam has been provided by Ibn Warraq. http://www.secularislam.org/

Islam is a philosophy, as Ayn Rand would have said, and like any philosophy it should be subject to examination and critique by libertarians, as much as any anti-freedom philosophy. There may well be some Muslims who are moderate by dint of having in fact given up on significant aspects of their religion in order to intergrate. But any person who takes Islam seriously, and who practices it fully, is not a moderate. Islam by its very nature is a creed utterly at odds with Western classical liberal values. Christianity is not, because despite its past and despite attempts by the religious right to give it one, Christianity at heart is a private creed with no real political ideology. The concept of “give unto Ceaser what is Ceaser’s, and unto God what is God’s” is heresy in Islam, because Islam says that unless Ceaser is one of the faithful he must be overthrown in time and disobeyed in the meantime. Islam is a total philosopy of life that includes the political realm. It sees no seperation between the private and the public, between Mosque and State. Islam can only become moderate by ceasing to be Islam in any meaningful sense. So while your idea of the problem being only a few fringe extremists may be comforting, it is false.

Susan’s stories of large numbers of Muslims refusing to integrate and obey the laws of the land in the U.S. is a phenomenon that can be seen in Britain, France, Holland, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Singapore, Australia, and in many other places where large scale Muslim immigration has been allowed. In Denmark over 60% of sexual crimes committed against women are by Muslim men, despite them being a small minority of the population. In Holland, once a bastion of liberalism, Dutch youth are increasingly expressing homophobic and anti-Jewish attitudes as a result of the influence of young Muslims who are see as “cool” for their rebellion against the decadent West. Recently in Australia a Universty allowed supposedly moderate Muslims to hold a conference on the future of Islam in in their adopted land. One of the decisions that was made at this conference was that Muslims are under no obligation to obey laws protecting homosexuals from violence. And this was not some fringe extremist group saying this. In the U.S. the main Muslim advocacy group, CAIR, which supposedly represents moderate Muslim opinion, has called for the Constitution to be replaced by the Quran, has defended the actions of suicide bombers, and even the Sept.11 terrorists. And this is a group the media treats as moderate, the Muslim equivalent of the NAACP. So with all due respect, your either being politically correct, or, you have you eyes well and truly closed.

David Horowitz has reported on the problems of the domestic Muslim population in the U.S.

“The implication of the soi-disant “realist”‘s position is that, in order to fight Islamic extremists, it is necessary to adopt anti-Muslim policies and make a special immigration policy designed to exclude muslims. Even if you ignore the fact that the type of authoritarian government required to implement such measures would be abhorrent to any Libertarian, this is a singularly ineffective approach to dealing with terrorism.”

The only domestic policy I have advocated is to cease allowing Muslim immigration for the near future, and to increase immigration from places like China, Japan and Korea. This would not require authoritarianism, and in fact many libertarians, Ilana Mercer being just one, advocate some form of immigration restrictions. The claim that any measure at all to restrict or offset the growth of Islam would require fascism/authoritarianism is just a red hearing to frighten the sheep.

I think your argumant that this would not deal with terrorism is wrong for three reasons. First, terrorism is not the only problem. I am concerned with allowing the growth of a virulently anti-Western and anti-liberal creed in our midst, not just with acts of terror, which are just the fruit of this creed. We already have enough problems dealing with Socialism in all its forms without adding Islam to the mix.

Second, terrorism requires non-domestic measures such as those that President Bush has undertaken in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Third, your claim is wrong because allowing the growth of large Muslim communities has indeed helped terrorism by providing cover, as happenned in Germany. Had the naive open borders ideology of liberal tranzi’s not been the norm in places like Germany, then the Sept.11 terrorists would have found it much harder to hide and get support while they prepared to slaughter three thousand of my countrymen.

Please don’t try to teach me little lessons. I am well aware that 50 years ago most immigrants to Britain were from the W Indies. I specifically said that they came with an intention of integrating. In fact, they integrated (the majority of them) in the face of soul-destroying resistance. That you could even imagine that I was accusing W Indians and Indians from E Africa as barbaric speaks of your own mind set, not mine.

I know that Pakistan is now a nuclear power, thank you. So is N Korea. Forty years ago, it was not. Except for a ruling elite, Bhutto and pre-Bhutto, they were primitive and barbaric. I count as barbaric anyone who believes in burying adulterers up to the neck and inviting the crowd to stone him/her, murders brides for their dowry, throws hot cooking oil in the faces of daughters/daughters-in-law to disfigure them, performs clitorectomies and forces women to walk around in black curtains. Most of the original Pakistani immigrants — i.e. not people from the W Indies, India or Uganda — were very primitive. They are the ones who had no intention of integrating, and who passed on a contemptuous attitude to the host nation to the numerous progeny spawned by one man with four “wives”. They were not, in other words, the civilised Moguls who colonised N India.

I feel confident in saying that unlike you, Mr McGahon, I have lived in India and a moderate Islamic country, so forgive me if I fail to appreciate the honour of your lofty instruction.

Verity: I have no intention of teaching you “little lessons” or “instructing” you from aloft or below, but you can hardly complain if your sweeping statement about “barbaric former colonies” is taken to mean more than just Pakistan. Why not come out and say Pakistan if that’s what you mean? Your characterisation of Pakistani immigrants as invariably polygamist misogynist misanthropes is a grotesque caricature. You repeat the canard about the nature of the 2nd and 3rd generation’s attitude towards the host nation. A small number of hotheaded ideological losers cannot be taken as representative of the mainstream.

Shawn: You are conflating two separate arguments. It is certainly true that Islam is a politicised, proselytising religion in a way that Judaism and Buddhism aren’t and that Christianity no longer is. There is a form of Islam, Wahaabism, sponsored by Saudi Arabia which forms the philosophical basis for Islamic terrorism and it is right to argue against this and fight its poisonous influence. It is also right to challenge the tolerance which exists in mainstream Islam for this extremism (perhaps analogous to the tolerance within Irish nationalism for republicanism). This doesn’t mean that confessional freedom should be restricted. Freedom of worship is an important freedom as is freedom of association.

This is not the same issue as whether immigration from Muslim countries leads inexorably to the Talibanisation of Britain. This is demonstrably not the case.

As for the Islamicisation of parts of Paris, I don’t argue that this isn’t happening. My point is that the British experience of Muslim immigration and integration contrasts favourably with the French. This suggests to me that it is the notoriously vainglorious, self-deluding French culture which has the problem.

Frank McGahon, You were perfectly well aware, when I talked of barbarism, that I was not referring to W Indians or Indians (Muslim or Hindu) from India or E Africa, and it is outrageous that you thought they could be credibly confused with primitives like the people who immigrated from Pakistan 40 years ago. You wouldn’t have pretended to believe that I was referring to Hugenot refugees, would you? Or the thousands of displaced Jews we took in after WWII? No? So in your mind, someone might credibly be accused of thinking that W Indians and Indians were “barbaric”. Hoist by your own petard as they say in vainglorious France.

I would have said “Pakistani” rather than barbarians, but, not having been around then, I wasn’t sure whether large numbers of other primitive peoples might have been admitted at the same time.

For many years I’ve suspected that the root of all evil is in fact the obsessive belief and slavish adherence in ANY sort of hocuspocus fantasy, be it football, religion, shopping or whatever. Effort invested in reducing the image of Islam from a serious subject – with an occasionally violence-inducing credo as a regrettable side-effect – to a worthy and gentle pastime, as has already happened with Christianity, would do much to promote the hoped for future in the last para of Perry’s original blog. Perhaps inspired mockery of some of the more absurd tenets of Islam would be a good place to start for our so-called politicos.

Personally, I loved the singalong carols and general hanging about absorbing the frankincense aromas, mince pies, mulled wine and loose chat with other anglo expats at St Mark’s English Church in Florence, Italy over the festive period, but I wouldn’t want anyone to think I was involved as some sort of adherent/believer/supplicant/fanatic, oh no indeedy – I’m only here for the beer, as they used to say – and let’s keep it at that.

I never said that confessional freedom should be restricted, I said that immigration should. Also, Wahabi Islam may be a more extreme form of Islam, but it is not the only problem. As I clearly said, it is not extreme forms of Islam that are the problem, it is Islam full stop.

As to Britains experience, I have met and talked with many British people who do not share your positive claims. In the last two years I have met three British familes who have moved to New Zealand specifically to escape what they rightfully fear is the Islamicisation of Britan. I have been told more than a few strories of women being threatened, spat upon, and assaulted for wearing “revealing” clothing in areas with large Muslim populations. There are more than a few places in Britain now where sharia, not the Queen’s law is the rule in practice. So called extremism, which in truth is just standard Islam in practice, is not a fringe problem in Britain, it is a growing cancer that threatens the liberties of the British citizen. In less than fifty years Islam will be the largest religion in the U.K. And as I have said, there is no such thing as moderate or tolerant Islam. In every nation where Islam is the dominant faith there is tyranny, authoritarianism and social opression. Pretending Britian will be different is absurd and no better than the shallow poltical correctness spouted by the left.

Another point. Exactly when were the British people asked if they wanted the wholesale transformation of their nation and culture? How can people who claim to believe in liberty advocate the forced dislocation, displacement and transformation that mass immigration entails? The entire mass immigration project, not just in Britain but in Europe and the U.S, is big government statism at its worse. The rights and liberties of previously existing peoples and communities have been thrown in the trash for the purpose of creating more votes for the welfare state and more jobs for its beaurocratic cheerleaders. It is very easy to accuse those who want to preserve their culture and way of life as Nazi’s out to preserve the white race, but this is a shallow and childish level of debate, worthy of the left.

You make only half a point about the choice between culture and genes. The English culture you seem to think I must set aside is the “values”-based one defined (only recently) by the left. You know … tolerance, decency, Blairism in fact. But an identifiably English culture has been fifteen hundred years in the making so it contains quite a bit which Mr Blair does not mention.

That said, I can best help you understand my position with a question. I think we agreed on a past thread that you are an Irish gentleman. Very well, if Ireland is brown in fifty years will you feel no regret for your peoples’ dispossession, for their passing out of history, for the travesty of rich Celtic traditions reduced to a bland five-minute soup of tolerance and decency?

You see, the choice you give me is not the one we English actually face. And btw I am an economic libertarian and a minarchist, and I have abandoned neither.

Guessedworker: To answer your question: the prospect of Ireland being “brown” in 50 years time doesn’t alarm me. I don’t conflate “race” with culture. It isn’t axiomatic to me that an Ireland composed mostly of people of mixed race would represent “dispossession”, “passing out of history”. Such people would still be Irish after all, and would still be the descendents of today’s Irish people.

The reason I posed the hypothetical choice to you was as a thought experiment, not as a real world choice. The person who is primarily concerned with English culture and heritage – and I don’t mean “tolerance”, I mean the actual cultural and historical heritage – would choose option 1. The person whose primary interest is in preserving the white race chooses 2. I answered your (no less hypotherical) question, will you answer mine?

As for your claim to be an economic Libertarian and a Minarchist: is it your position that “White English” culture needs defending, or are you content that with a minimum government it will defend itself? If you feel that special, race-orientated policies must apply or that the good of the nation or “race” supercedes the interests of any given individual (white or black) then you aren’t any kind of Libertarian.

Verity: The reason I asked you to be specific, apart from disagreeing with your characterisation of all Pakistani immigrants as primitive barbarians, is that you will find that many of those agreeing with you here (and in other threads) do consider West Indians this way.

Shawn: I think you have a false impression of the level of integration by Muslim immigrants into Britain. I don’t accuse anyone of being Nazis but it is apparent to me from Guessedworker’s argument that it is more than just English culture he is concerned with preserving, he maintains that Englishness is synonymous with “whiteness”. It is hardly “childish” of me to seek clarification on this.

It could easily be that today, only fifty-five years since the Windrush, 20% of the peoples living in England are non-white. Now, one must assume that English rates of reproduction will remain below replacement level for some time yet. If, therefore, one factors in miscegenation rates and the race-egalitarianism of the left, another five decades could be all that’s needed to make change through the ballot box impossible. The “real world choice” facing us then will be between submission or conflict, and some at least will choose conflict. As an Irishman you of all people will understand what that means.

1) Immigration IS dispossession, no doubt about it.
I am mindful that an Israeli giovernment spokesman appeared on the news only a few months ago to denounce the Palestinian demand for a right of return. “We will never agree to racial suicide,” he said.

2) Native culture and heritage is never respected by invaders. The sole guarantor for an English culture in England is the English themselves.
Culture and, indeed, the wider aspects of civilisation-building are not fixtures and fittings to be sold with the property to any incoming resident. Their living meanings require the interpretative capacity of their creators.

3) The talent of civilisation-building is not given equally to all peoples. We have no means of knowing whether our immigrants have the creative potential to maintain and carry forward what we have built.

4) Miscegenation represents discontinuity for both parent races. Neither live on. After a few generations your brown descendants would understand next to nothing of your Irishness.

5) Race realism and libertarianism are not incompatible since race realism informs and thereby enhances choice. Race realism is incompatible with egalitarianism and ignorance about race. In any case, Frank, I said I am an economic libertarian, not a social one. The decadence of our socially liberal society is a grave threat to our survival. I deprecate it.

Even in Malaysia, which is constantly touted by the socialists as an example of a “tolerant” Muslim nation, the freedoms and social status of non-Muslims have been steadily eroded. And non-Muslims account for about 45 percent of the population there — god forbid what it will be like when they are only 25 percent of the population.

Your future, Great Britain and Europe, staring you right in the eyes. Foolish to pretend otherwise. Start making some hard decisions and start having some babies too.

Shawn — I can say that I know a number of Euros who are already making their escape plans to the US, Canada, Oz or as you say, NZ, because of creeping Islamization of their nations. The Dutch and Scandinavians seem to be the most nervous, but I’ve met Brits who were scared too. The outflow of such people will only increase the demographic imbalance in Europe in the future. They will however, increase the demographic odds for us New Worlders.

“3) The talent of civilisation-building is not given equally to all peoples. We have no means of knowing whether our immigrants have the creative potential to maintain and carry forward what we have built.”

Ah, good to see that old Adolf’s theories about “culture creating”, “culture bearing” and “culture destroying” races live on.

“4) Miscegenation represents discontinuity for both parent races. Neither live on. After a few generations your brown descendants would understand next to nothing of your Irishness.”

“Think with your blood!” But doesn’t this statement contradict your very own claim that “We have no means of knowing whether our immigrants have the creative potential to maintain and carry forward what we have built”? Yet here you are saying with an air of finality that they can’t do what you’ve just said you didn’t know they could do …

What utter pseudo-biological nonsense you spout on here. What would specifically “Irish” or “English” genes look like? What would their effects be on those their possessors? Does they imbue their carriers with a special love of Guinness or Spotted Dick, Gaelic and Chaucer? If so, I’m itching to hear how their effects are mediated through protein synthesis. Does they have pleiotropic effects? What is their penetrance? Are epistasis and dominance things to worry about with these genes? What percentage of the English and Irish populace carries them? Since you’re such an authority on matters of genetics, I’m sure you can tell us all about the process of RNA transcription and gene splicing for these Hibernian and Anglo-Saxon genes of yours – details, man, give us the details!!

Where do you get this dire rubbish from, “Guessedworker”, Nazi textbooks on “Rassenkunde?” It certainly isn’t to be found in any modern text in use at any half-decent institution of learning – though I’m sure it’s those beastly PC Thought-Policemen who are to blame for this fact, eh? For a member of the “master race” (which is, paradoxically, under threat from “inferior” races, according to what passes for thinking in your circles), you spout an awful lot of obvious nonsense about genetics and “race.” One would think you’d care enough about being embarrassed by “inferiors” to at least do your homework before mouthing off about matters about which you know so very little.

English people can tell, with pretty much 99% certainty, what a proper English person is, after meeting them and talking for a minute or two maximum I reckon ( as opposed to British ). There is no particular gene for it as you well know, but, alas for wanabees, not everyone who desires to join a club will fulfill the requirements.
Being English is more than a state of mind and geography, it is heritage too. If anyone and everyone who desires to be “English” could become so by making a trip and signing some forms, then being English would mean nothing. If anyone can be English, then what can I call myself, for assuredly I am different to you: I am English.

You *say* you are, but what if I don’t agree with you? Do we put it up for a vote at the local “Proper English Persons Club?” But how do we know that *they* are actually what they claim to be? I suppose we’d have to take the matter to the Queen in the end, wouldn’t we, that paragon of Englishness by the name of Elizabeth Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. What did you say? She isn’t English! She’s a Kraut by descent! The horror!! English heritage is surely doomed now!

This sort of nonsense is so laughable that it barely warrants a response.

Please calm down, old fruit. Excitability is unbecoming and deeply unproductive to the debate. Look where it’s lead you … Hitler, dear God.

Furthermore, it caused you to conflate two issues that I purposely separated because they are not the same thing. All societies have a cultural heritage which is why I said – very firmly – that immigrants won’t respect ours. Not all societies have high civilisations which is why I said – much more tentatively – that we have no way to know if our very mixed third world population can sustain ours. By all means clobber me on these issues if you like. I love a good contest, Abiola, and you can always be assured that I will debate with you in good heart and with due respect.

You may also find that, interested layman and reader of Nature and Heredity though I am, I’m not a totally soft touch on genetics. I know a straw man when I see one. The fact is that the science has not advanced to the point where it proves my argument OR yours. The beginnings of doing so rest with the consortium working on the Hapmap.
Meanwhile, I reference back to evolutionary psychology, not genetics, and needs must do so until the broad value of human haplotypes is demonstrated.

One final point of criticism, Abiola, which I intend in a constructive spirit. I see in your response to Andy’s comment an arrogance which I’m sure, if we met, I would not find in your person (at least, I certainly hope not!). What if Andy does base his self-identification on phenotype, culture and lineage? It is what he and I call English and it is not the same as your phenotype, culture and heritage. So what is the problem? Is this – the basis for self-identification of all peoples in all societies – inadequate because genetic science has yet to demonstrate h-bd at this level of detail?
I commend humility, Abiola, and more generosity of spirit.

Who Are We?

The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.